


The Five Basic Characteristics of a Proper Demon

by Good_Evening



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angel Sex, Angst, Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Awkward Romance, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley's Bentley (Good Omens), Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Implied Mpreg, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Metaphysical Sex, Multi, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Top Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:46:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22468867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Evening/pseuds/Good_Evening
Summary: Hell needs more interns, Crowley needs to learn where to lie and tell the truth, and the Bentley has never driven this fast through Central London to Aziraphale's bookshop."Crowley dashed past his effort to take his coat. Crowley was not wearing a coat. Aziraphale’s hands hung in the air nonetheless, an attempt to understand the cause of the demon’s urgency barely scraping through the gears of his mind. His fr-business partner went straight for the wine, uncorked it with one sleek, black talon, and began downing the bottle in one go."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 232
Collections: Top Aziraphale Recs





	The Five Basic Characteristics of a Proper Demon

**Author's Note:**

> Is it crack? It's definitely fluff. I absolutely cannot write sex scenes without either comedy or violence.

There are five basic characteristics--four, if you ask some--to a true demon. Number One, you have to have Fallen. This is the first one to be argued by some demons who happened to _happen_ later. Number Two, you have to love Sin. It’s _in_ , it’s just the way things go: tempting, wiling, occasionally fileting the unsuspecting enemy, Sin is the most popular, most beloved superstar in Hell after the big S, Himself.

Number Three. You have to _hate_ , absolutely _despise_ all things angel- Heaven- and God-related. This is the easiest of all basic requirements and one hardly any demon has to think about, although they do. Most of them, all day long, not that there are such things as days in Hell, even if the passage of Time is very, very real, and achingly, agonizingly slow. The fourth thing is, to a degree, up for debate, but to discuss it in its entirety would be to distract from the flow of this narrative, which is gently, not at all forcibly, flowing into the charmingly abstract and brutalist architecture of Crowley’s apartment, or, more exactly, the street outside.

“You think he’s in?”

“‘Course he’s in, we caught him sleeping the last century. Got a commendation for Sloth on that one, he did.”

“Hard to believe sleeping’s all he did,” Ligur grinned toothily.

Hastur chuckled like the tumble of coals, “Right, let’s give ‘im a _poke_ , then.”

Crowley was not sleeping, in fact. It was 1986, still enough time before the first rumblings of the Apocalypse that a demon could really enjoy himself without feeling the pressure, and with Crowley’s apartment block still technically under construction--

“ _That’s_ how new it has to be? Dear boy, they haven’t even finished the plumbing!”

“Since when have you seen a toothbrush or toilet paper at my place? It’s _sleek_ , it’s _black_ , it’s--”

“Yes, yes, very _you_ , darling. Be a dear and have some more, after this, there’s that garnacha you made me buy in Spain a half century ago and I swear it’s swill, so you drink it.”

\--Crowley was thinking fondly of Aziraphale, casually subverting Demonic Characteristic Number Three, while reclining on a couch only a serpent could find comfortable. He was listening to a tape of Vivaldi’s _I Want to Break Free_ on an inhumanly high setting to drown out the rattle of jackhammers.

Demons don’t need to bother with stairs, so Hastur and Ligur appeared at his front door.

Demons don’t need to bother with knocking, so they opened it and walked right in.

“Crowley,” Hastur growled as deeply as he could, the proper minimal-syabllic greeting for anydemon when it’s been a century or so. Crowley snapped his fingers, an appropriately rude comeback, and Hastur bared his teeth. The two demons crept forward, now a yard away from the couch.

“In all the wisdom and hatred of His Infernal will, we have come to deliver--”

Crowley snapped his fingers again, startling him. Ligur tried to finish,

“It’s come about time, Crowley, for you to participate in--”

He snapped his fingers a third time, and both Hastur and Ligur stood in a mixture of confusion, ire, and caution, since anydemon would perceive this treatment from a demon of so many commendations as at least somewhat backed up by his power. Rudeness is an extra flavor of Sin best afforded to those at the top.

They waited patiently in the stark, empty apartment for his command, silently effusing an odor of brimstone and ever more trepidation. Finally, Crowley’s limbs splayed off the couch, jostling the headphones off his ears as he bellowed,

“ _God knows, got to make it on my owwwwnnn!!!_ ”

“Be that as it may, we still have certain demonic duties.”

Crowley screeched and fell off his couch, which made Ligur screech and bare his teeth, which, in turn, made Hastur fling up an arm and hold him back from attacking a possible threat. Said threat adjusted himself against a sleek, black coffee table, carrying in hand the same mister that would, in mere decades, be pointed menacingly in aforementioned Duke of Hell’s direction.

“Hastur, Ligur,” he threw his arms wide, “Always uh, always a treat, care for--”

“Nothing.” Ligur declared.

“One thing.” Hastur corrected.

“Yeah,” Crowley ran a hand through his greased hair, “Well, you know, what can I, how may I be of--”

“Ssserviccce.” Ligur hissed. Crowley squinted at him, since hissing was very much the purview of all snakes and only most lizards, and he’d sworn they’d settled who got hissing at the last demonic celebration, some fifteen hundred years before, during the Nika riots.

“Service. Yeah, always happy to, uh, serve.”

Crowley stood at his full height, waiting. Ligur stood at his slightly shorter height, but puffing his chest up a bit so he would look taller, making his waiting slightly more unpleasant, and therefore, by his limited logic, more demonic.

“We’ve come for you, Crowley,” Hastur began in a voice that sounded, and smelled, as though he needed a lozenge.

“Yeah, no, I checked in a decade ago, everything’s tubular, guys, really, really sunk a hole in one with the Reagan Administration, big things in the works with Thatcher, always. I have a date with her at the Ritz in…” Crowley could never remember this particular date, and would eventually forget it entirely, until one fateful dinner with Aziraphale in December, 2012, where she saw him looking the same as he had, thirty years before, and promptly died.

“To be more accurate, one might say we’re… come… ing?”

Ligur was working on his timing. Ligur was always working on everything thing about himself, as a proper demon should to be more properly demonic, except when he wasn’t, which then was Sloth and, therefore, also demonic. The air in Crowley’s brand new flat had never before crackled with such demonic energy, the kind that feeds off other energies, especially apprehension, which Crowley was beginning to emit like a small but desperate radio transmitter on a sinking ship.

“Haha, yes, coming… coming to check up on me?”

“It’s Time, Crowley.” Hastur stated, tilting up his chin. In his head, he thought, _I’ve used the big ‘T,’ which might be confusing since this has nothing to do with Her at all, but if I tilt my chin maybe he’ll get my meaning._

Demons tend to distrust themselves, because demons tend to distrust everything. That, too, is one of the top characteristics of being a demon, Number Four, in fact, but it’s not why Hastur and Ligur were standing in Crowley’s foyer, quietly exuding a dark cloud of menace and, now that he squinted, _Lust_.

Sin is in, after all. ‘Tis the season.

“ _That_ time?” Crowley did not squeak, as he pulled his shirt a little tighter from where it hung open on his smooth chest, now prickling with sweat. Ligur’s eyes dipped to the exposed flesh, and he licked his lips,

“Yes, Crowley. _That_ time. And since you haven’t slotted someone for yourself in… come to think of it, the last six thousand years, our Dark Lord has decided--”

“ _He_ did?” Crowley did not squeak again. Hastur’s smile was more devious than usual. Seventy-two percent more devious, with an eighty percent chance of good old demonic _fun_.

“Yeah, Crowley. _He_ did. It’s time to open up to your brethren.”

“We need more internsss, Crowley.”

“Yes. More interns. And more cooperation from you.”

Hastur and Ligur advanced on him, then, as Crowley rounded the coffee table and backed his way into the kitchen, thanking Someone for the open, circular floor plan he’d cleverly snuck into the original blueprints. He’d wanted this flat for _ages_. He had a view of the bookshop. He could have flashed Aziraphale _Goodnight!_ in Morse Code, if he’d ever bothered learning it, and he was currently blessing himself for never having learned it. Aziraphale. Aziraphale!

“Wait! I’ve uh, I’ve got one. A partner.”

Black eyes narrowing suspiciously, Hastur stopped, and Ligur, a little behind him, as always.

“What you mean, you’ve found a _partner?_ ”

Demons don’t usually “partner” for this exercise. It was more of a back-your-prey-into-the-corner deal from the get-go. It might do to explain what this exercise is, in the first place.

“Found someone to open up that nice little _enny_ you got? Lot of cobwebs in there, I bet, got their work cut out for ‘em,” Ligur helpfully supplied.

The term he so grossly slathered on his lips is, properly, “enn,” as in, “Crowley had not properly manifested his enn for demonic repopulation since the Beginning, or thereabout, and even then, he’d been quite cagey, sharing himself with anyone who had more than the human number of teeth--or phalli." Unlike Making an Effort, having an enn or a “pike,” as they were colloquially known, does not affect demons’ day-to-day activities. They are irrelevant, up to a metaphysical sense, but manifesting them on demand is, technically, a requirement of the Contract Crowley had been duped into signing after about a second of peer-pressure of having Fallen.

Now, the “en” in “enn” at first stood for “entrance,” which was what the first demon who ever placed his pike was about to call it, (allusions to their weapons came first) but since the sensation of entering another was one of the more purely _good_ feelings left to the demonic race, he choked, and didn’t make it past the first syllable, or the first thrust.

Satan had long since stopped caring about Creating by the time he’d sorted out the first round of titles and the particular functions of each of Hell’s Nine Circles (and the VIP Tenth Circle, where Margaret Thatcher is). He did, however, understand that some demons, demons like Crowley, for instance, had zero reservations when it came to killing--or, in Crowley’s case, “pranking”--other demons with the usage of holy water. Eventually, H2Oh-no would depopulate the ranks of Hell faster than the ever decreasing trickle of Fallen could hope to rebuild. And so, in a last-ditch effort, He phoned it in, and let demons pick a kind of sex.

For purposes one would suspect, the repopulation of Hell is not to saddle the engorged system with yet more titles of Duke, Baron, Earl, or Marquis, _or_ more arguments about which was above which per the dictionary, since most demons are illiterate, anyway. No, the purpose of this exercise is precisely as the two demons lurking just out of Crowley’s personal space had specified: to make more interns. That is, lesser demons. Demons you could kick and throw off things and order to get more coffee.

Crowley, sleek, black thing that he is, picked the one that would least interfere with the lines of his clothing on the rare occasion he used it at all, and while this expression of Vanity eluded his fellow demons, their vague clapping still greeted him when Beelzebub, zirself, commented that it did, in fact, look fetching on him. As long as he put it to use. Which, to firmly establish, he had Not. Crowley did not care for repopulating, or anything slimy or sticky for that matter, like Hastur and Ligur did.

With that history behind us, we return to find that Crowley has been backed up to his fridge, fingers white around the mister, desperately imagining a way out of this situation and, to his luck, finding one.

“Yup, I’ve already got one!”

“Well I've got one for you, right here," Ligur thumbed the waist of his slacks.

Officiating their assault, Hastur added, “Satan, Our Dark Lord, Prince of Darkness, hisself commanded--”

“No, a, a very powerful partner. Mm-hm. Found them, ah, through the grapevine. Literally. All the way back in Rome, we were cavorting through Nero’s vineyards right around the, he was playing the, the fiddle. Yup. Been cavorting about every thousand years’ hence.”

He checked his watch, a sleek, black Rolex with an uncanny device he’d personally programmed that alerted Aziraphale to put the kettle on when he wanted to complain about Head Office. He also neglected to say that it was Aziraphale, himself, he’d been cavorting with, and they’d rather drunkenly disregarded their duties, that day and sort of left, well, the whole _city_ to burn. _And_ they’d forgotten to miracle themselves sober, so it was quite the hangover to wake up to.

“Look at the time!” Crowley did not use the big ‘T.’ Hastur tilted his chin up, outdone. “Got to, bless it, it’s a bit early to bother them, you know, but if the show must go on, doing my duty, and all,”

“What’s their name?”

Crowley blinked. He almost said _quoi?_ but remembered most demons couldn’t make heads or tails of the Romantic languages after the Great Schism. Italy had mostly been left to its own devices, and France, too, for that matter.

“What’s. His. Name?”

“Azz…” he hissed, running through lists of thousands of demons and still, for whatever reason, _completely_ unknown to him, _totally_ out of the blue, uttering the first syllable of his angel’s--not _his_ angel, but the angel he cavorted with--not _cavorting_ cavorting, but--

“As… mo… deus?”

Yes. That wasn’t a dumb lie.

“Asmodeus. Yup-yup. Took me right in, no question regardless of that busy schedule, they’ve got with all the, uh, Lust and f-fornication. Can’t keep them waiting, if they know you two are already here…”

At this, his back began to straighten. Crowley relaxed into his lie, the roll of his neck serpentine as he let honest-to-goodness, eleventh-hour deceit run through him like a spring of fresh water.

“Asmodeus, P-Prince of,” the Dukes stammered in sync,

“The one and the same. Terribly busy, must be off, then, thanks for the warning, always happy to serve Hell. All hail Satan,”

“All hail Satan,” Hastur and Ligur agreed, shell-shocked, suddenly scared for their hides if they had encroached on a favorite enn of Asmodeus, Prince of Lust, theirself.

As the two disappeared in a puff of sulfur, Crowley madly paced his spacious apartment. In a fit of terror, he knocked one of his prized snake plants off a pedestal, and immediately stomped it, smashing and grating the heel of his boot into it again and again with ferocious screams conveniently drowned out by the construction, for they were as terrifying as they were terrified.

He couldn’t fake a relationship with Asmodeus and skip on down to Hell, show up at their door, _virginal_ , for all intents and purposes, no. Asmodeus is allergic to virginity. Breaks out in St. Anthony’s Fire. Although it wouldn’t be hard to _claim_ that he was one of the millions upon millions of lays the Prince had carelessly notched up over the centuries, (they didn’t exactly keep logs--again, demons aren’t the reading type) he still had to _fornicate_ , results aside, to prove that he at least tried.

For all he knew, Asmodeus was near sterile. It wasn’t as if Hell is teeming with new interns at every _bacchanal_. No, Asmodeus is rather skittish when it comes to things like proper, procreative sex. The thought of pregnancy-- _pregnancy_ , the term rang through Crowley like a funeral bell--is thoroughly unsexy and unLustful, by demonic standards. It’s perfunctory. Unpleasant, even, which is the only reason, each season, they find it pleasant at all. And Crowley had thought himself so crafty for having skipped it for sixty centuries.

He needed to find someone to copulate with _now_. And so, unbeknownst to him, he was already in the Bentley, driving mindlessly at ninety miles-per-hour through the heart of London to get to Aziraphale’s, Edvard Grieg’s _Don’t Stop Me Now_ gently lilting through his panicked thoughts.

-

Aziraphale was in a good mood. Angels are almost always in good moods, except for Sandalphon, who now handles most of the paperwork for miracles after going a little hard and heavy at Sodom and Gomorrah, even for Old testament standards. No, Aziraphale was _tip-top_ after receiving notice of Crowley’s incoming company. He was always happy to host Crowley. Examining that thought had hardly ever occurred to him, except when it did, which he’d dubbed Very Dangerous Territory Indeed, and typically skirted past.

Simple enjoyment in his best fr--acquaintance’s presence was all he needed after a dismal day of parting with a second-edition copy of Robinson Crusoe, his mild tiff with Daniel Defoe over ethnic representation notwithstanding. Political correctness simply hadn't been the fashion, at the time.

Neither was his tweed jacket, his tartan bowtie, or the pale leather oxfords he was currently wearing, but his mind was far from anything at the moment but setting out Crowley’s favorite teas, and keeping the inevitable bottle of wine on standby. In this regard, he unknowingly “set the mood,” as it were, even supplying a scented candle to scare away the perfume of that wretched customer, and all thoughts of _selling_ one of his precious books. Shudder to think.

“Crowley!” he clapped his hands together as the demon entered, looking unusually flustered. “What a lovely surprise,” although it hadn’t been, “I was just setting up, would you like an earl grey or something like that ceylon you so enjoyed…”

Crowley dashed past his effort to take his coat. Crowley was not wearing a coat. Aziraphale’s hands hung in the air nonetheless, an attempt to understand the cause of the demon’s urgency barely scraping through the gears of his mind. His fr-business partner went straight for the wine, uncorked it with one sleek, black talon, and began downing the bottle in one go. Aziraphale frowned,

“My dear, what has you so--”

“Hell.”

“Well, there’s no need to curse,”

“Hell, angel, they’ve got my number.”

Aziraphale thought for a moment, “Have you changed telephones? Hold on, let me write it down, just give me a moment,”

“Aziraphale, they’ve summoned me to perform, ngk, _duties_.”

The angel relaxed, even sitting back into one of his plush, threadbare armchairs he willed into standing despite an age of three hundred years. You just couldn’t get Rococo quality, these days.

“My dear boy, if this is about the Arrangement, I may be able to help you--”

Crowley choked.

“But,” Aziraphale continued, now a little concerned, “If something’s on your mind, I would certainly hear you out.” Crowley had begun to pace. “Sit, darling, tell me what’s got you so worked up.”

Crowley continued pacing for ten seconds, not at all the menacing lurk of his Hellish compatriots, before collapsing morosely into the couch that now carried the exact indentation of his angular arse. He’d sat there so much, over the years, drinking, absorbing all of Aziraphale’s comforting presence: his optimistic, if unhelpful, advice on all matters Earthly and Infernal. Crowley had no idea how to approach this one. Crowley had no idea how to get out of this one at all, and he was decidedly not Going There, if your mind’s in the gutter, as God Herself, would imagine it is (and what She Imagines, Is).

Red hair shining in a fashionable greaser side-part, shirt low-cut and billowing, Crowley looked pale and sick and handsome as a Victorian in a Gothic romance. Aziraphale shifted his knees in his comfortable chair, suddenly uncomfortable, and unaware why. Crowley held the bottle to his head as though he might douse himself in wine and set himself on fire, forgetting it wasn’t the right proof.

In defense of his beloved furniture, Aziraphale was beside him in an instant, hugging the bottle to his chest and gazing into his friend’s distant, yellow eyes.

“You’re worrying me now, Crowley, out with it. Why have you come?” _Why are you threatening my Louis XIV chaise-longue?_

“Hell. Wants me to… produce more demons.”

Aziraphale took a step back on instinct,

“They want you to, to Fell more angels?” he sputtered. Crowley’s head lolled to the side, his frame boneless, eyes vague and lost and a little bit scared. Aziraphale stepped forward again, but hesitantly, always drawn to a soul in need.

“They want more demons through the, ngk, _revised_ method.”

“A revision to what?” Aziraphale exclaimed, now getting exasperated. Inasmuch as demons don’t dance well, Crowley was dancing quite well around the subject.

“ _Puh-_ rocreation.” His pronunciation rang hollow in Aziraphale’s ears. “They want me to, to just, make more. Thassit.” His hand gestured and flopped, bounced a little on the faded floral upholstery.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, intelligently. “Well, how will you uh… go about…”

“I’ve got an enn.”

“An in with whom? Crowley, if you’re embarrassed by your partner, there’s really nothing we haven’t shared before. Why, I told you the very day after that awful experiment with Freud--”

“Not an ‘in,’ an ‘enn,’ angel. The receptive part. They want me to… preggers. They want me fucked. I _am_ fucked.” He bent slowly, arms curling until he held his head in his hands, half-drunk and breath hitching, and Aziraphale held the bottle, mouth fallen open and forgetting how to relatch.

“Oh. You have to… Make an Effort.”

“S’not an effort,” Crowley drawled, voice muffled. His silk shirt was streaked with sweat. “S’bloody… ingrained. Sssatan, Himself decided on it. Right after the Fall, he said, ‘You lot, you carry on the demonic cause. N’you, you do the, the _piking_ ,” he spat.

“Piking?” Aziraphale paled. Demonic copulation sounded very unpleasant, indeed.

“S’just what they mean when- _hic-_ when it’sss the one _puh_ -penetrating. Lot of weird… connotations. Human-level stuff. And I picked a bloody _enny_ , not knowing what I was getting into.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes, computing and coming to a dead halt. “An… enny?” he ventured.

Crowley visibly shuddered to hear the crude word come from the angel’s mouth. He’d never speak it on his life if he knew what it meant, never swore _as a rule_ , insofar as Crowley knew him. And, as Aziraphale, himself, had described, they knew each other intimately. Intimate. He shuddered again at the implications.

“And…” Aziraphale hesitated, “whom have you chosen to, erm, “pike your enny,” as it were?”

Crowley looked up, pale as if he were about to puke. Aziraphale debated with himself and still pushed the empty teapot close to him, just in case. The demon glanced at it, considering, then folded his hands back around his face, dragging at the flesh until his cheeks turned to jowls.

Pursing his lips and increasingly understanding the crudity of their conversation, Aziraphale set the wine down, safely out of reach, and sat primly next to Crowley on the creaking couch. Crossing a boundary they’d never bothered delineating, he peeled back some of the sweat-soaked hair fallen across Crowley’s forehead, murmuring quietly to him,

“There, there, my dear, it’ll all work out. It’s just… business as usual, right?” he carefully pretended he didn’t know much about Hell’s inner structure, the delight they took in violation.

“S’a bloody violation, s’what it isss.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. Always on the mark, when it came to Hell. Awfully predictable, Evil is, when you get down to brass tacks.

“That’s… that’s awful to hear, my dear. I’m so sorry… wait. Why?”

“Why what, angel?”

“Why go about it at all, can’t you, can’t you _embellish?_ The paperwork?” he carefully avoided the term ‘lie,’ since that’s exactly what he did whenever he filed one of Crowley’s miracles with Heaven.

“I have to produce, they’ll know if I don’t, s’obvious, angel, something’s, something’s got to _come out_ , or I’ve to _try,_ ” he spat venomously, shaking a little.

Aziraphale found his hand stroking Crowley’s back before he could command it to stay in his lap, as he typically did when one part of him or another decided physical contact with his hereditary enemy was, erm, the _Good_ thing to do. Crowley and he hadn’t touched much since the Great Fire of Rome. And there Nero had been, singing along to their bloody drunken debates as they pointed out the stars they’d made, laid out in the vineyards watching smoke billow into the sky, hands touching just barely, Crowley’s head so close to his shoulder, he--

No.

“No. I can’t... I can’t go through with it.”

Aziraphale blinked, remembered his place. His hand remained on Crowley’s back, now mournfully absorbing each undemonic hitch of his breath.

“S’so bloody _uncouth_ , how they go about it, always a mess, n’, n’I’ve never…”

It dawned on Aziraphale like the first sunrise, when he’d clapped--clapping had been invented before stars, someone had to congratulate the Almighty on Her Work--not quite knowing what it was for. What he was doing. Why he was there, despite having it all laid out for him quite clearly in his bureaucratic job description. Aziraphale was a Principality. A figure of authority, guidance, and inspiration, by definition. He should be anything Crowley needed at any time, and he gave very good advice when asked for it. He was sure. Crowley always thanked him for it.

“A bloody _enny_ to choose, of all thingsss,” Crowley hissed, clenching at his hair in the manner of paid mourners centuries before, ready to rip it out. Aziraphale gathered his hands in his own and tried So Very Hard to ignore the way Crowley readily accepted it, clutching at him, leaning in so his breath tickled his chin and the mouths of their corporations were So Very Close…

“Dear boy… does it matter, erm, _who_ it is?”

“No. S’a fucking free-for-all, angel, ‘nything goes,”

His shiver went straight to Aziraphale’s core, and the angel sat up straighter, allowing the demon to creep in closer, now nosing his collar, sniffling against his bowtie.

“The things they get up to down there, awful. Like a recreation of the Fall, n’everyone like _me_ , didn’t know what they were signing up for, just bloody, “Oh, oh, is this what angels are up to these days?” Soon as you know it, you’ve Fallen, n’then, then the bloody _contracts_ , all this paperwork devised to dodge the question…”

This was all news to Aziraphale, who had only had to sign for his corporation and his flaming sword, the thought of which brought on a bit of a panic he had to quash down, for reasons known to the reader. None of those contracts involved violations of any sort. Angels abhor unsavory physical attachments--nephilim notwithstanding.

“What about…” his lips were dry around the thought, “What about… me?”

“What ‘bout you?” Crowley shifted, still sniffling, confused by the change of subject.

Leaning away, Aziraphale deposited Crowley’s hands in his lap and tilted his chin up with one forgiving finger.

“What if we, erm, Made the Effort. Together. C-copulating,” his mind scrambled for the right words, “Would they notice, as long as, as long as you tried? It’s not as if every, _urk_ , violation is… productive. Right?”

Crowley shook his head, half-thinking it was the angel doing it for him, half-grinding away at the possible meaning behind the words.

Prophetic and exacting as always, Agnus Nutter had, in fact, included this and the following interactions in her seminal book, but in a fit of puritanical censoring, one of her descendants had torn it out, leaving a blank space somewhere between the Challenger explosion and Aziraphale’s words to Crowley, and the demon's monosyllabic answer, at the very end of this story.

Sensing Crowley’s confusion in line with his own, Aziraphale pondered what the proper human pretext was for these things, treading unknown waters as though to the fabled ‘X’ marking the spot. This metaphor includes the strange burbling of a feeling he would later have the knowledge to label, things like _want_ and _anticipation_ and, given the appearance of a siren, _desire_.

He closed the space between them, still respecting Crowley’s near six thousand years of chastity, and placed a chaste kiss to the side of his lips, all the answer he needed.

Or what he thought he needed. Crowley sat there, slack-jawed, looking like he might discorporate.

“Come now,” the angel tried to sound convincing, failing, “it’s not as if… it’s not as if we haven’t considered it, in the past.” _The present, so very much the present_ , he struggled to put a lid on this.

“Considered it,” Crowley repeated, dumbstruck. His eyes were the most intense amber Aziraphale had ever seen. With a slight glance at his hand where it now held Crowley’s cheek, he realized they were glowing. Incandescent. Beautiful.

“It’s, it’s not crossing any lines if it’s to _save a life_ , I can always slip that into the paperwork, might even call it a miracle if, if you…”

“Considered it.” Crowley’s eyes focused. His hand snatched up and gripped Aziraphale’s wrist with serpentine speed, and the angel chastised himself for jumping. Crowley never broke his gaze. “When?” his voice came dry and pleading, like a parched field in the desert sun.

“Since…” Aziraphale completely forgot that he didn’t have to answer that, that he could have _embellished_ , for all the word meant to him. Now, though, he’d begun his answer, and he had to think back. Back to the sixties, on that sleazy strip: back to France, and Rome, and Rome, and…

“I think… Rome? I felt it, ah, a more… peculiar thing.”

The Ark, though. Crowley’s indignation. His rage. Aziraphale didn’t want to think about the admiration that swelled in his heart when Crowley had so freely cursed out the Almighty, something Aziraphale feared so much to do and yet questioned every day of his life since. As if the Right thing to do weren’t always Good, or maybe his definitions weren’t exact. They were handed to him. Crowley was handed to him.

“Rome,” Crowley repeated again, reduced to a recording like that blasted machine Aziraphale still couldn’t grasp. There were so many things he didn’t understand. The way Crowley was looking at him. The way his hand gripped tighter, but his body pulled away. The rest of him pulled away. His favorite demon almost fell back into the couch, still staring, silk shirt glaring in the light of the lamp.

“Why Rome?” Crowley inquired, as if they were talking about the weather, or the oysters Aziraphale had invited him to enjoy, not the metaphor that would be so crudely used in _Spartacus_ when Tony Curtis was offered an ultimatum. ‘Bodyservant.’ The term cloaked so many things, and yet so plainly explained. That was what Crowley meant to Hell, at this moment. A mere bodyservant. Beholden to the will of his Master.

Something in Aziraphale rebelled at this thought, something deep and ugly and covetous, something he would have to unpack later on a bus ride from Tadfield to Mayfair and still not touch the ramifications therein. Their hands would touch. Their hands had already touched. Aziraphale glanced at where Crowley’s long, slender fingers compulsively brushed back his hair, his gaze now directed at the bottle of wine like the barrel of a sniper, willing it either to burst or surrender.

“I thought… it was mutual. I wasn’t afraid, then.”

“Afraid?”

The implication hung in the air, no longer stagnant but fluid, roiling. Fear meant a Before Fear. Fear meant before Rome. Mutual meant everything it sounded like, and weighed like an elephant on his shoulders, an elephant in the room.

“The Wall,” Crowley declared, although his voice was soft with overtones of Fear. “When you, you spoke to me, of all creatures, after I’d done all that, on my own orders, not caring the consequence, you still talked to me.” A puff of laughter escaped his chest, unexpected. Aziraphale clenched the fabric of his trousers. “And when you told me,” another laugh, “you gave away that, that fucking _sword_ , bless it, I thought, You are the only bastard in all of Creation who would do such a thing. Be forgiven for such a thing.” He rubbed at his eyes, tired of this day. Tired of existing and yet giddy to continue. “There’s some love for you out there, Aziraphale. You’re special. Not like the others. That’s when, _ngk_ ,”

The bottle of wine appeared in his hand, and he took a generous swig before passing it and running his red mouth over the delicate silk of his immaculate shirt. Aziraphale drank it immediately.

“Right then,” he drawled, “You’ll help me. Grand.” He clapped his hands together, not looking anywhere in the angel’s direction. “Where’s your bedroom? I’ve always wondered what it looked like.”

He paused.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

-

Aziraphale led him up a tiny, winding staircase of no reasonable physical proportion to the structure. Escher-level stuff. Fourth dimension stuff, easy for an Ethereal (or Infernal) being to create and navigate when just enough books and chotchkies are in play. His bed was soft, although he’d never used it for sleeping. The lamps were dim, just enough to reveal small print and the sharp curve of Crowley’s collarbone. The mood was set, and yet entirely up in the air. Crowley sat with a small bounce, then stood, then sat again.

“I’ll have to…” he tried to elaborate, “manifest it.”

“The enny,” Aziraphale unhelpfully supplied. Crowley shook his head fiercely,

“Don’t call it that, it’s, s’not proper. S’an enn. Hearin’ you say that…”

Aziraphale understood it just enough. He would never say it again, at least not without a factor of mischief to it.

Crowley grimaced and shifted his legs, looking away,

“S’done.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah. Whenever, you’re, whenever you’re ready, I can,”

“Right. Suppose I’ll, just remove my um…”

Aziraphale went to work on his clothes, realizing painfully that he had no real sense of how to undress, having largely miracled his garments on and off since cloth had first come into style, and least of all how to do it in an appealing matter, despite his conquests, and whatever had happened with Freud. It did occur to him that very little about this was appealing to Crowley. He’d stated it quite clearly.

When he’d collected and folded his clothes primly on the nearest chair, he looked back on the bed to find the demon stark naked, lounging against the pillows with his legs crossed a little too tightly, trying to ooze surety and failing miserably.

“What, erm, what’s the preferred--”

“Just get on the bed.”

“I mean, I know how this works, obviously, ever since I wrestled with Jacob,”

“I really don’t want to hear about your past lays, angel, just get on with it.”

“Right then.”

 _Lie back and think of Hell_ , they both thought, unaware of how in sync they already were, or would be.

Aziraphale crowded his leg in between Crowley’s and flinched at his flinching, deciding instead to sit on the bed, their naked hips touching. His hand descended to stroke his chest fondly, absentmindedly.

“You know, we could still try to fake it. I could, I could spin it spectacularly, I’ve gotten good at it,”

“Just do it,” Crowley breathed, uneven. His eyes were closed and the Fear hung between them, rapidly closing. “Just… you can,” he parted his legs minutely, an invitation that made Aziraphale’s suddenly human heart skip a beat. “You can do whatever you want, as long it’s done.”

Aziraphale stopped hearing after the first clause.

_You can do whatever you want._

_You can do whatever you want._

_You can._

The question being, what _did_ Aziraphale want? Discreet gentlemen’s clubs aside, his flings had been mutual in a different sense. Rome. The Wall. There was so much to cover, and yet Crowley’s timeline was shrinking. What were the consequences of taking the time to talk it out? How long would it take? Would Hell come knocking at his door? Would they drag his demon out, kicking and screaming, violate him as promised, if they just sat down and figured out this, this unspoken, bloated, bursting _thing_ between them?

He wanted more time. Very soon, only decades away, he would feel this again. But the first time is always unbearable.

“Angel.”

Crowley was growing more uncertain, fidgeting. If thinking too hard about this would only increase the pain, then Aziraphale would not. He would guide Crowley through this as he’d guided Moses through the desert. Well, maybe not the best example, forty years and all, but he’d, he’d gotten them there. He would get Crowley there.

The innuendo of that sentence would plague him for the next fifteen years, bare minimum.

Carefully, slowly, he slotted his leg between Crowley’s and pressed his hands against the mattress on either side of his flaming hair. He sat back on his calf, one foot still secured on the floor, still ready to bolt. He didn’t know why he needed to say it, but he did,

“Look at me, my dear. It’s only me.” _Be not afraid._

Fearfully, but resolutely, Crowley opened his eyes and Aziraphale’s heart softened and ached for the tears brimming at the corners.

“This may be mandatory for you, but it changes nothing for us.”

“It does,” Crowley croaked,

“It doesn’t,” he replied softly, “Not if you don’t want it to.”

Crowley relaxed minutely, allowing his legs to fall farther apart, gasping when he felt the angel’s Effort straining against his stomach.

“You won’t Fall.” He asked, more than stated.

“I won’t.”

“You’ll lie for me.”

“I’ll… whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it,” Crowley laughed, bitterness sharp in it, “this is whatever it takes, we’re bloody naked and you’re ready to pike me without even--”

Aziraphale silenced him in a way you may be familiar with, and the fight died a little more in Crowley, the way he held himself: his limbs sinking into the bed. Their flesh met more and more, becoming familiar, hands creeping over the angel's wide back, nails grazing the strong bones where his wings would emerge. Their lips parted for a moment to breathe, and Aziraphale sensed Crowley was about to speak again. He pressed down more insistently, their lips slipping and his tongue barely gliding against Crowley’s as the demon loosed a moan that seemed to shake the roof, itself.

“I’ve got you,” he felt compelled to say.

Crowley melted. His arms fell back to the sides of his head and his ankles crept up Aziraphale’s flank, unknowingly, instinctively pulling him tighter. Aziraphale angled down a little, meeting their lips again and reaching down to experiment with whatever “enn” meant, and found it a near copy of the human edition, with one small modification.

“Ah, there it is,” he smirked into pale column of Crowley’s neck, fingers grasping the extended clitoris and awaiting Crowley’s moan. Instead, he shrieked, and the angel immediately recoiled.

“My dear, are you alright?”

Crowley nodded haltingly.

“M’just… first time n’all. Nothing to… go on, business as usual. Don’t mind me.”

Aziraphale smiled but it was heavy on his lips, and they soon found their way back to Crowley’s, coaxing his mouth open with very little effort.

His cock just barely slid against the small extension of the clitoris, red and flaming and hot as hellfire, he was sure.

“Just tell me if it’s too much,” he whispered, and Crowley nodded again, sagging under him and then tensing, gasping when flesh met flesh. Satisfied with the reaction, Aziraphale again probed between his legs, slipping his finger along the seam of Crowley’s cunt, his _enn_ , if they were being accurate for the moment’s intensity, its crudeness.

Slick and soft, the folds parted neatly around Aziraphale’s finger as he swiped along them with the deftness of a pianist.

“ _Oh,_ ”

“Is that too much?”

Crowley shook his head, “No, no, get, ngk, get on with it.”

Not a little nervous, Aziraphale went deeper, stroking the velvet touch of the labia minora before his finger was swallowed whole, two knuckles deep in velvet heat.

Crowley jerked, “ _Nmf,_ ” and Aziraphale pulled back again, fretting,

“Really, if it’s too much, you must tell me, I’ve no intention to… to,” _violate_ “hurt you,” he gulped.

With a few moments to breathe, Crowley braced himself, vying for control of his heartbeat,

“You can go deeper,” the words came out in a rush and Aziraphale’s mouth dropped open. Crowley flushed beautifully, turning his head into the pillow as he prepared himself for… for… he didn’t really know, did he?

Without warning, Aziraphale shoved his finger in as deep as it could go. Crowley’s cunt convulsed around him as his clitoris jolted against his dick. He shouted and shivered, clenching so tight around Aziraphale’s finger, he swore under his breath, glad Crowley missed it because he hadn’t in all of six thousand years, hadn’t the chance, the inclination--

“Did you just… climax?” The word seemed too clinical. Crowley continued shaking, gasping for breath, still convulsing around the finger inside him.

“I um,” he gulped for air, “I wouldn’t know, would I?”

Aziraphale parted the hair stuck to his forehead, grinning madly, loving him so much it physically hurt,

“Six thousand years, hmm?”

“Do shut up.”

Granted permission, he continued his slow assault, grinding two, then three fingers and flexing them inside, Crowley’s legs trembling, his brow knitted by confusion and a barrage of new sensations. Aziraphale kissed it, then his nose, his cheeks, but his lips he bypassed, sucking the sweat from his neck and biting a sharp indent into the soft flesh above his jugular.

“ _Ah!_ ” Crowley ground against his thigh, unaware of himself. He clutched the sheets and moaned heartily as Aziraphale emboldened himself, cock slipping dangerously close to the soft sanctum, fingers drenched, his breaths racing like horse. Horses, big muscles, big cocks. Awful they turn to glue, but you have to use the whole thing, otherwise it’s not right--

Ah, there he was. Staved off his orgasm. Good lad.

Crowley crooned under him, fumbling with his name,

“Azzz… Zira… you can, just do it already,”

“Hmm?” the angel murmured into his throat, “What’s that, love?”

Bloody hell, _love_.

Crowley shook, “Just, just get on with it. You know what I mean.”

He covered his eyes with an arm. Aziraphale peeled it back and wound their fingers together, affording a gentle but nevertheless commanding pressure to the way he pinned Crowley to the sheets. His legs writhed. His lips were red and shining.

“I’m afraid you must be specific. There are so many acts to making love, it’s a true spectacle.”

Crowley blushed and thrashed, “Sss’not making love, y’bloody idiot,”

They’d get back to that one.

Aziraphale tsked, “If you insist,”

He thrust up, barely grazing the opening and Crowley threw his head back into the pillows with a raucous moan. Aziraphale would get complaints from his neighbors. He anticipated them with a greedy delight.

“Jussst put your cock in me!” Crowley hissed.

“What, dear, put it where?”

He circled the soaking entrance with the head of his cock, shivering in ecstasy for what was to come. Cold baths. Dog-eared pages. Freud naked, Freud naked, Freud’s son, Lucien, painting Freud nak-

“Aziraphale, put it in me, I need- _hic_ -need you inside, _pleassse_ ,”

“Well, when you put it like that,”

Aziraphale thrust inside with one push. Crowley’s whole body tensed like a bow and Lord, how he _screamed_.

“Fuck! Fffuck! Angel, Go-Sa- _Aziraphale!_ ”

He wailed and shook and clung his free hand to Aziraphale’s shoulder as the angel plummeted deeper, wrapping his ankles tight and forgetting his reservations, the Fear. Aziraphale smirked into his collarbone and bit a nasty bruise, marking him with the full intent of watching him try to hide it later, given his love of v-necks.

Creaking wildly, the headboard smacked into the wall and snapped the plaster clean through to the wood underneath. Crowley howled and pleaded, Aziraphale changed direction and slammed into that spot that made the demon cringe before pulling back almost entirely, huffing a lustful laugh at the way Crowley scrabbled and scratched at his shoulder to shove him back in. His hips tilted and begged. He was beautiful like this, shining with sweat, panting Aziraphale’s name and cursing Hell and Heaven both.

“Tell me what you want, darling,” Aziraphale played again. Crowley wasted no time,

“Fuck me, pike me, fuck me with that fat cock, _Oh, Christ!_ ”

Several car alarms went off. Crowley’s demand also burst a water main, caused two traffic accidents, and scrambled radio signals to play _The Show Must Go On_ on all stations. Aziraphale grinned darkly, teeth digging into that soft, delicate flesh, and pulled Crowley’s hips tight against his own, splaying him open before driving as deep as he could go.

Streetlights burst. Bookshelves toppled. The Queen farted at a dinner with foreign dignitaries.

“You’re going to come like this, love,” he wrenched Crowley’s head back with a cruel fist in his hair. Crowley moaned like a whore, “Look at me, **look at me** ,” a little of his True Voice trickled through, eyes brightening. His wings threatened to burst, and suddenly, radio stations switched to _I Want to Break Free_.

Crowley obeyed, like good demons do.

“Yessss,” it was Aziraphale who hissed. Crowley’s hands, now free, cradled his face, pulling him into a kiss but still, the angel spoke into his lips, opening eyes across his being that devoured Crowley’s lust and degradation from every angle.

“Come for me, come for me, love, come for me--”

Crowley came and a minor earthquake shook the entire London area. Aziraphale came inside him, completing their tryst, gentling their ravenous kisses to something slow and desperate, something that wouldn’t last and needed to be eked out to its last drop. He swallowed Crowley’s moan as he pumped him full, then settled more firmly on him, collapsing a little more, his face sliding off the demon’s and into the sheets as he panted and rested.

Crowley’s breath rattled in his chest as it calmed, “So,” his breath came in puffs, “You never told me you were such a sadist,”

Aziraphale giggled into his neck and laid as many kisses there as Crowley could bear, “You are simply too lovable, my dear.”

-

Hastur and Ligur had been dutifully lurking outside of Crowley’s apartment for the better part of ten hours, and their energy to do so was flagging fast. Soon, they would be reduced to menacing stares and mere hisses from dark alleyways.

“Where’s he gone?”

“Maybe he weren’t lyin’.”

“Bloody Asmodeus, Crowley’s not even a Duke, what would a Prince want to do with him?”

“I know what I’d do,” Ligur chuckled like a femur cracking in two,

“Yeah,” Hastur replied boredly, “you were pretty clear on that one.”

“I just think, you know, if the two of us were to really go at ‘im--”

At that moment, the Bentley rounded the block with a screech of tires, sleek and black and entirely unperturbed by the appearance of two demons outside its master’s apartment. Upon parking, illegally, Crowley took his time gathering his things. He never left things in the Bentley aside from tapes. Crowley didn’t have anything he couldn’t simply miracle up, so this was all rather a spectacle designed to irritate. It succeeded.

“Hallo, Hastur! Ligur,” he nodded in their general direction, whistling as he gently closed the door and skipped up over the curb.

Hastur growled, “Don’t you look chipper?” he hadn’t meant confusion to worm its way in, but worms were his specialty, or maggots, more exactly.

“Yup-yup. Had a terrific romp. Asmodeus, you know, best lay in the ten planets.”

“Nine?” Ligur also hadn’t meant to make it a question.

Crowley covered his mouth theatrically, “Oh, forget you heard that, Princes, you know, always spilling the beans. What can I do for you?”

“Just wanted to make sure you--”

“Oh, of course,”

“And you didn’t happen to--”

“No. So sad. Next cycle, maybe. Interns are what keep the machine running.”

“Yeah," Ligur agreed, “The gears do need a little lubrication, time to time, throwin’ ‘em in. Not like it’s a waste.”

He smiled. Crowley pretended to smile. Hastur stood, still menacing and dark and imposing but losing his lustre. With zero subtlety, he sniffed at the air, Ligur following suit, and the overwhelming scent of another creature’s lust--a creature more powerful than Crowley--was evident. They both frowned, glanced at each other with mild disappointment. Ligur chewed his cheek.

“Well, since you’ve gone and done it,”

“Naturally! And I’m quite tired, they really did a number on me, no rest. Time runs slower down lower, after all. Got a crick in my back that’ll last a century.”

The two demons sniffed again, just to be sure. Then, with a great clap of thunder, they parted ways in a black crumble of earth that loosed a few bats which may or may not have carried rabies.

Crowley counted to ten in his head before permitting his shoulders to sag.

“Well, that went wonderfully, my dear boy,”

He shrieked, plastering himself against the Bentley, neck tilting back as Aziraphale leaned in, a pleasant flush to his face and a hunger in his eyes that no crepes could satisfy.

“Wh-wh-what are you doing here?” Crowley mumbled, straightening, increasingly aware that his neighbors would see him coming home in the same clothes, and a very unfashionably-dressed, _ostentatiously_ gay man pressing into him. Not that Crowley cared what anyone thought about his sexuality. He was more disturbed by the fashion faux-pas.

“You practically sprinted out of bed, this morning. I had thought it strange you could move at all, given how many times we--”

“Ngk.”

“--And so I decided to check up on you.” He glanced over his shoulder, “Those wouldn’t happen to be the two who…”

Crowley nodded, flushed down to his collarbone, which Aziraphale eyed ravenously. He could still picture those thousands of eyes on his pinned corporation, the slight fear of being devoured before Aziraphale’s very essence seemed to flow around him, slide him under his wing like so many years ago, and whisper, _I’ve got you, my heart_.

“Ah,” Aziraphale was clearly distracted, “Glad to be of service, then.”

In clear violation of basic demonic standards, Crowley was flagrantly flouting Numbers Two and Three, loving nothing about discussing the sins that would have been committed upon his person by Hastur and Ligur, while loving everything about the fact that it was Aziraphale, himself, who chose to assist. He was, however, doing a bang-up job at Number Four, distrusting everything from his perspective of the act to whether he could avoid discorporation on the spot from the mere presence of Aziraphale’s knee between his thighs.

“Come, love,” _Love,_ “I’ve clearly not held up my end of the bargain.”

“And what could you possibly…” Crowley didn’t have time to answer, because Aziraphale had transported them directly into his living room, and was shoving him down on the couch as though raring for a repeat.

Crowley gulped.

Crowley _hoped._

This is the much-debated, possible Number Five, that demons do not _hope_ , but anydemon could give you ten things they hope to do with and to Donald Trump, once he makes his way down, so the debate goes on.

“Right,” Aziraphale clapped his hands, spun, and miracled a large number of bags onto Crowley’s sleek, black countertop. “I owe you breakfast. That’s common courtesy, after a night of passion.”

“Passion,” repeated Crowley.

“Well, what would you call it? I did more than ‘give you a hand,’ as it were,” Aziraphale chuckled as he began cracking eggs. He paused, smirking deviously, “Now would you like your eggs _scrambled_ , my dear?”

“Ngk,”

Surreality aside, seeing Aziraphale flip eggs in his stark, bleak kitchen seemed to lighten the space. In fact, everything he looked at, barring his plants, appeared happier, brighter, promising of the future. The sun was out. Aziraphale hummed as he cooked. Hell was far away, barely an afterthought, and even the gouge in his center where the Fall had replaced the Ecstasy cautiously bloomed with something new, something that fed voraciously off hope, and something which Aziraphale seemed to confirm with every coy glance, every salacious smirk. Crowley relaxed into the harsh angles of his couch, almost reverting to his True Form, he was so comfortable watching Aziraphale simply exist in his space. Being a part of his life.

It really should have occurred to him that he was talking out loud sooner.

“My dear, I’ll always be here, if that is what you wish.”

Crowley replied, intelligently, “ _Ngk_.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Commentsss win you pointsss in Hell.


End file.
